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Thursday, 1 August 2013

NEW Divergent Movie Still Features Tris & Caleb at Choosing Ceremony + On Set Report

We have another new Divergent still! It shows Beatrice “Tris” (ShaileneWoodley) and her brother Caleb (AnselElgort) at the Choosing Ceremony. This is actually our first official look at Caleb.
They are both wearing Abnegation grey clothing, waiting to be called up and make the choice that will change their lives forever.

Read the description of the scene from USA Today + the on-set report, in which they talk to Shailene Woodley, Neil Burger & Veronica Roth:

CHICAGO — The sacred Choosing Ceremony Day has arrived on the set of Divergent.
One
by one, the candidates step onto the marble altar in front of hundreds
of citizens, standing before five ceramic bowls to make their fateful
decision: Which of the five social factions will they join in the
socially stratified world of this dystopian future?

The heroine of Divergent,
Tris (Shailene Woodley), steps cautiously onto the altar, stopping
before the ceremonial bowls representing Abnegation (the selfless),
Candor (the honest), Amity (the peaceful), Erudite (the intelligent) and
Dauntless (the brave).

She pauses for 15 seconds, deep in thought, before finally drawing a knife over her palm above her chosen bowl.

"Dauntless," a voice cries out.

The
Dauntless faction in the auditorium lets out a berserk cheer in the way
that only the chosen protectors of a society can. But Tris still seems
distracted as she makes her way over to her new family and sits quietly
in the front row.

It is, after all, a life-changing decision and a
blood bond with her new faction, which requires Tris to leave her
parents, who look crestfallen in the Abnegation section.

"There's a
lot going through Tris' head. This is a definitive decision," Woodley
says afterward. "She doesn't think her home is ever going to be reopened
after this. So she's understandably extremely emotional."

But the
scene, shot in Chicago's modern Seventeenth Church of Christ, Scientist
in front of hundreds of extras, has an even deeper meaning for Woodley,
21. Taking the role of Tris in the potential blockbuster franchise — Divergent
is the first of three books from Veronica Roth and is on a pace to sell
4 million copies — was a step Woodley insists was taken with a great
deal of care.
Like Tris, she knew there was no going back, even if
no blood oath was involved. She knew life would never be the same in a
way that a rare few — Jennifer Lawrence and Kristen Stewart — can know.

Taking
an on-set break on a steamy July afternoon (with the church's
air-conditioning system in disrepair), still wearing her Abnegation
garb, Woodley recalls the thought process of joining Divergent (out March 21).

"It
was a huge decision," she says. "At first, I was not planning to take
this opportunity, because it felt overwhelming. If there is success and
if it happens in a way that was anything similar to Hunger Games or Twilight, that's extremely intimidating. Especially for a very homely nature chick like me.''

As
director Neil Burger notes, "This movie has a massive audience and
machine behind it. It exposes her to a different situation for her life.
It's a different thing from the independent movies that she's been
doing, which are really great. "

Woodley had already filmed the high school love story The Spectacular Now with Miles Teller (opening in select cities Friday) and made a name for herself as George Clooney's daughter in 2011's The Descendants. The latter role captured Burger's imagination for Tris.
"She
was this rebel where she had this cockiness, yet underneath, she was
vulnerable and capable of all sorts of hurt," he says. "I loved that
quality about her."
He offered her what many actresses would
consider the role of a lifetime. But Woodley says she was still thinking
about saying no until her mother convinced her that she would be "crazy
not take this on."

"My mother said, 'You've never declined a part
because of what could happen. You've never not done something from a
place of fear,' " Woodley says. " 'You cannot say, this is a big-budget
film, so I don't want to do it. You have to decide if you are passionate
about it.' "

Woodley chose the Divergent bowl. She
instantly infused her own California 2013 version of hippie vibe into a
project that had a family atmosphere and was overseen by
husband-and-wife producers Doug Wick and Lucy Fisher.

The
producers watch the Choosing Day scene on monitors in what's called the
"editor's suite" but is really a spare conference room in the church
with effective air conditioning. In between takes, they coo over a
cellphone video taken the day before featuring Woodley, Ansel Elgort
(who plays Tris' brother Caleb) and Scandal star Tony Goldwyn
(her on-screen father). The trio had made a goofy video send-off to the
producers' daughter Tessa, who had spent time on set.

Wick proudly
shows the video to Roth, 24, an unassuming spectator sitting in a
director's chair next to her husband, Nelson Fitch. The author, who
wrote the novel while she was a Chicago college student, is a frequent
set visitor who insists she's just along for the ride and not imposing
her will.
"I haven't had to get all authorly at all. I just let
them do their jobs, which they do well," she says. "It's been a
shockingly positive experience all around."

During a break, the
suite becomes even more family-like as Ashley Judd (who plays Tris'
mother) enters with her two cockapoo dogs, Buttermilk and Shug. Judd
grabs a seat at a conference table next to a visibly pregnant Kate
Winslet, who plays the villain Jeanine Matthews. The two gossip as they
sign copies of Divergent.

There's not quite as much time to
relax for Woodley, who had to learn a boxing-inspired futuristic
fighting style and incorporate the hammer-fists into tightly
choreographed scenes.

"I haven't hit anyone, and no one has hit
me,'' she says. "But there have been some frightful moments where I'm
like, 'If I don't have my (stuff) together, I could get nailed right
now.' "

She climbed a portion of the Navy Pier Ferris wheel in one
scene and stood on the edge of a six-story building in another. "It was
fun. I got to lean over a bit. I was connected to wires, of course. I
wanted to make the jump," says Woodley, who adds that a stunt double
made the actual leap.

Woodley has been a constant presence on the
set, appearing in nearly every scene during a shoot spanning a frigid
Chicago April to this insufferably hot July.

"I have no idea what day we're on," Woodley says, attempting to smile. "Sixty-seven? Sixty-two? Sixty-something."

She
keeps it fun by hanging out with her co-stars, who share a block of
apartments. The musically inclined crew even jams together. "It's kind
of like a frat house," Woodley says. "To have everyone thrown into a
room where everyone gets along and everyone is excited about hanging out
with each other is not an everyday occasion."

As she talks,
Elgort sits next to her, comfortably lost in his own world while typing
on his iPhone. The two will move from screen siblings in Divergent to lovers in their next film, the indie romance The Fault in Our Stars (no release date yet). Woodley says it will be an easy transition.

"Ansel is my brother for life," she says, as is her Spectacular co-star Teller, who also appears in Divergent.
Woodley insisted by text that Teller take the part as a fellow
Dauntless member. "The guys I like, I keep around," she says with a
laugh.

In a way, it's all part of the normalcy she wants to maintain, no matter what kind of success she might find with Divergent.

"I'm
so extremely lucky to have this all," Woodley says. "But I also have a
whole separate life outside of this that I am just as fully passionate
about. My life hasn't truly changed at all, and I really don't
anticipate it changing."

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